


no more on the docks i'll be seen

by procellous



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (there's a description of a rotting corpse), Canonical Character Death, F/M, Ghost Ships, Highly Symbolic Birds, Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Sansa Stark is Queen in the North, Temporary Character Death, canon is a bolt of cloth and i have made myself a pretty dress out of it, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 04:04:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19099381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/procellous/pseuds/procellous
Summary: Theon dies facing the Night King in the Battle for the Dawn.Sansa refuses to let it end there.





	no more on the docks i'll be seen

**Author's Note:**

> i saw s8 and decided that this was necessary. have i seen any got since s1? no. do i care to? …i probably will manage to sit through it at some point but that day is not today
> 
> title is from fiddler's green, which is a sea shanty about death and thus is appropriate
> 
> also this is the first thing i have finished in years and it's. entirely self-indulgent. here u go

She kneels by the pool, her red hair falling in a curtain around her face. She takes a deep, shaky breath, a single tear slipping down the line of her nose and dying on her lips in a burst of salt.

 _He’s wherever there’s salt water,_ she had been told once, words from a laughing boy to a naive girl, neither of them knowing what would come for them. This is a fresh water pool, far from the sea: she knows it might not work, knows it won’t be enough. Even so, she has to _try_. She can’t let it end here.

Unbidden, another tear slides down her cheek and lands in the pool with a silent sound.

She steps into the water, her plain grey dress soaking to black, and the waters close over her head.

_Let it be enough._

She feels the wind on her face, and opens her eyes. She stands on a rocky shore. The ocean waves crash and break against the rock, the sky grey and the sea storming. A pier stretches out into the dark water, barnacles clinging to the wooden posts. Overhead, a flock of sea-birds cry and call out, their black wings fluttering madly in flight, the white bands on their under-wings flashing as they swoop and dive in the strong wind.

There’s a man standing in the water, his feet covered by the rushing waves. His skin is greenish-black, blistered and wrinkled. His eyes are glassy, rolled back in his head. He grins at her, showing black gums and teeth small and sunken. Seawater drips from his mouth.

“I’ve been expecting you,” the Drowned God says. “You’re here for my son. You want to drag him away from his feasting and rest, to keep him far from the sea in your stone castle.”

“Yes,” she says. She can think of no reason to lie. “I am.”

“You think I’ll give up what’s mine?” He wraps a clammy hand around her throat, his rough palm against her pulse point, his thumb resting on her windpipe. A cold drop of water runs down her spine, but she doesn’t flinch. “I give _nothing_. I take _everything_. Maybe I’ll take your life, little queen; maybe I’ll drag you down into the deep and hold you there until your breath fails, and then you can see your friend again, while I feed your body to sharks.”

“Or I’ll take him from you.” She squares her shoulders and thinks, _I have seen worse than you._ “Take him and keep him. He’s _mine_. He swore himself to me, and I’m not done with him yet. You can’t have him.”

“You’ve iron in you, little queen.” He sounds approving. “I won’t make it easy for you.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything else.”

The Drowned God waves a hand, and a ship rises from the waves. The wood is rotting, the sails are in shreds and tatters, and the spars jut from the mast like broken bones. “If you can find him, the real him, you can lead him back to life. But if you choose wrong, or look back before you’re both out, even once, even for a moment, he will be lost to you forever, and you will never see him again, not even should you drown yourself in the sea.”

She nods once, sharply. He fixes her with a strange look. She is, somehow, reminded of her father.

“Because you saved him in life,” he finally says, “You may have aid. She’s been waiting a long time for you.”

She doesn’t understand, at first, and then she hears the barking.

Just for a moment she’s a young girl again, laughing in the summer air, sneaking cakes from the kitchen and blushing when she catches the eye of a handsome young man, and never knowing what waits for her just outside the castle walls.

Sansa Stark rests a hand in Lady’s thick fur, feels the softness of her double coat, and _breathes_.

“Let’s go, Lady,” she says softly, and together they walk out to the pier.

 

There’s a guard waiting for them on the gangplank, an enormous man that she thinks might be part-giant. He towers over her, each of his arms as big around as her entire body. His beard is thick and wild, shadowing his face, and his eyes are like burning coals.

Lady barks once, and lifts her head to show her collar. Sansa hadn’t noticed it before, the broad strip of leather and the small iron plate set into it. There’s writing on it, small and hard to read even for Sansa—the giant can’t possibly be able to see what it says: but he nods and lets them pass.

The ship sways beneath her feet, and she calls upon every lesson she’s ever had in moving gracefully to keep from falling. Lady stays close, looking no more at ease than Sansa feels. She’s not sure if that’s a comfort or not.

All Sansa can hear is the creak of wood and rope, the crash of waves against the hull, the trills of the sea-birds that flock around the ship. There’s no sign of him, of course: that would be easy.

There’s no sign of anyone at all. Sansa walks along the deck, from bow to stern, running her fingers over the lines as they slacken and tighten against their pins; she is the only one on deck.

“Can you find him, Lady?” she murmurs, scritching behind Lady’s ear in the spot that she likes best.

Lady lays her heavy head in Sansa’s lap, and looks doleful in the way only a very large puppy can.

“We’d better keep looking, then.”

He’s not on deck, which means he must be below. Unless, of course, he’s not here at all, and the god is playing a trick on her; but that’s not something she can do anything about.

The stairs below are steep and slick, and Sansa grips the rail tightly as she steps down, down, down into the dark, Lady’s nails clicking against the metal beside her. There’s only a single lantern here, swaying with the motion of the ship, the stubbed candle flickering behind red-stained glass. It doesn’t give much light, and Sansa’s not sure she’d want it to. _Something_ is dripping from the low ceiling, and Sansa hopes it’s water. Everything looks red in the faint lantern-light.

Down here, she can hear laughter, distant but raucous, and the slick slaps of flesh on flesh. Strains of music spill out into the dark corridor. There are closed doors, open doors, but every room she looks in is empty: there’s no light and nobody to see, just darkness and the drip-drip-drip of water soaking the soles of her shoes.

There’s a dark room at the end of the corridor. The wet wood is warped and bent, the paint peeling, and she knows what she’ll find behind it.

Blood sticks to her shoes as she opens the door.

It’s not as bad as she might have expected it to be. There’s nothing in the room but three men and a lantern hanging from the ceiling.

The cocky, smirking boy she once knew, before the world broke them both, leans against the wall with a cultivated nonchalance and a wicked smirk. The broken shell the boy became, the visible scars the least of them, kneels on the slightly sticky floor, trembling though the room isn’t cold. The man who had embraced her at the end of the world, who had pledged his arms to her, stands proudly.

It’s a test, she knows. _Which one is the real one?_

“All of them,” she says, answering the unspoken question. She holds out her hand and smiles. “Time to come home, Theon.”

 

She leads him by the hand to the door, but his hand slips from hers when she opens it. The ship is gone; in its place is a sea, the waters dark. She stands on the seafloor and breathes as easily as though she were on land, but she doesn’t let herself stop to wonder. There’s a path beneath her feet, broad as a road, and she sets out.

She keeps her eyes firmly ahead, not looking anywhere but where the path leads. She can’t hear Theon at all, and doesn’t dare call out to him. She might be alone in the water, just her and Lady, or perhaps if she reaches behind her, she could feel his hand—

She keeps her eyes fixed on the silvery road, and lets her hand drop to Lady’s head.

Around her, the sea churns. Dark shadows swim by as she walks: fish in great schools, strange sharks, once even something that looks like a kraken.

Then she’s in Winterfell, though it ripples and wavers like the reflection in a pool: the sun shining on green leaves, the summer of her youth. Her father, strong and proud, rides up, a sullen, sallow boy on the horse before him.

The world shifts. Robb rides by with Theon and Jon and her father. She watches as they find a dead stag and a dead direwolf only a little bit away, and while she always knew what happened in the woods that day, her fingers tighten in Lady’s fur when Theon holds a long dagger to a puppy’s chest.

Theon kneels to Robb, pledging his sword to his cause, and she can see his mouth form the words _now and always_ ; then she watches him betray Robb and take Winterfell for himself.

She sees Bran and Rickon flee, and watches Theon kill another pair of boys in their place, faceless shadows that leave blood dripping from his hands and sword, staining the water red.

She knew, she _knew_ , and yet she feels her heart breaking. Those boys were someone’s sons as much as Bran and Rickon, and their deaths didn’t save her brothers, did they? Rickon’s small bones in the crypts, Bran a shell for something else—

She watches the fire tear through Winterfell, hears the distant screams and sobs of people caught in the fire, but as her home—lost and found again and again—collapses in ash and rubble, it dissolves away into murky waters.

 _Look back,_ something whispers, in a voice that sounds like her mother’s gentle scold. _What has he done to deserve life?_

 _Look back,_ something whispers, in a voice that sounds like her father’s, stern and solemn. She can almost see him, his hands on his sword. _Avenge those he has killed. Avenge the boys who did no wrong, avenge Rickon and Bran and Robb whom you loved, avenge Winterfell’s burn, your home’s destruction._

 _Look back,_ something whispers, in a voice that sounds like her brothers, like little Rickon and Robb who always loved Theon; their voices are twisted with hatred. _It will only take a glance._

“He’s paid his debts,” she says aloud. The darkness doesn’t answer, but the questioners are gone, at least for now.

They continue in silence. Her feet make no noise on the seafloor, nor do Lady’s paws. If Theon is behind her, there’s no sign.

She’s not sure how long it’s been. A day? A week? Has it been long enough that someone’s noticed she’s gone? Or has no time at all passed?

The water around her darkens to a sickly brownish color. She knows what’s coming. The path lies ahead of her, narrow and twisting: she keeps her eyes focused on it. The screaming bypasses her ears and rattles in her skull. Her hands are clenched so tightly into fists that she almost worries her palms will break open with the force of it.

Lady is there, beside her, nudging her leg and urging her on.

 _I fed him to his own hounds_ , she reminds himself. _He is dead, and there is no one to pull him back to life._

The water rushes around her again, and there is nothing but darkness. She can’t see her hand in front of her face, only the faint shadow of the path.

Theon stands before her, now, ghostly and shadowed, fading around the edges. For a moment, she fears she’s turned around by accident, but no—this is another vision, for there’s a ghostly version of herself as well.

He’s as she knew him, on what might have been the last day of the world; and somehow he looks both worse and better. He’s clearly regained the last of the strength he lost to Ramsay, he seems healthier, and yet there’s a quiet misery draped around him like a cloak.

It’s strange, seeing herself, and she doesn’t look closely. Her red hair falls down her back like a streak of blood. There’s a crown on her head. This is the future then, perhaps.

 _You shouldn’t marry me,_ he says. I know how they see me. _A turncloak, a—a traitor._ He seems hardly able to say the word. _Besides, you know I can’t father children, and you need heirs, you—deserve—_ His voice trails off, his expression pained.

The ghostly version of herself takes his hands in hers. Sansa can’t hear what she says, so she answers aloud:

“There’s no one else I’d have. No one else I can trust. I don’t care how they see you, I don’t care if you can father children. I can’t bear them anyway.”

She’s never said it out loud before, the results of an uncomfortable test by a discrete midwife revealing the scars Ramsay left her with, hidden away where they can’t be seen, like all her others. It wouldn’t be impossible, the midwife had told her, but it would be a miracle if nothing went terribly wrong.

She presses on. The water grows thick around her, and every step seems to weigh her down.

There’s another Theon before her, shrunken and worn-down like an old statue left out in the weather.

 _Reek,_ he says.

“Theon,” she counters.

He smiles weakly, barely a twitch of scarred lips. _He’ll always be there_ , he says—it might be a promise, or a warning—and vanishes.

Every step is a struggle. She’s not even sure she’s going through water anymore; it’s far too thick, and tries to drag her down deeper. The darkness is oppressive. All she can see is the path, stretching ahead, a thin pale ribbon along the seafloor.

She reaches out and touches Lady’s head. At least she knows she’s not entirely alone.

An arrow flies past her head, and it takes all of her composure not to flinch, not to look back to see where it landed. The lights of distant torches and braziers flicker around her, distant shouts from the darkness.

She’s in the godswood, in the Battle for the Dawn. This is where Theon died.

Blades flash around her, arrows strike targets. She’s frozen, rooted to the spot, barely able to keep from looking behind her. She can see the Night King, his blue eyes burning. His blade stabs through her, burying deep in something—some _one_ —behind her.

He screams. It sounds close, so close, if she turns around she might save him—

“Sansa!” he cries. She flinches. “Sansa, please!”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. A tear slides down her cheek.

She takes a step. Then another. Step by step, she walks forward again. Theon is still calling for her. She wants to turn around, wants to assure herself that he’s fine, but she knows what she’ll see.

It’s just a ghost, just an illusion.

The water lightens around her. Theon’s screams grow faint, and the water thins, flowing easily around her and making her hair float freely around her head. She can almost see the edge of the pool she went into, the boughs of the godswood above her.

She breaks the surface, gasping for air, and pulls herself out of the water. She pushes her hair out of her face, water dripping down her back. She doesn’t turn back, she can’t, she’s so close—not until they’re both out, the Drowned God had said, and so she stares at the trees instead, clenching and unclenching her fists, and waits.

 

Theon’s head breaks the surface of the water with a gasp and a hacking cough. His mouth tastes like the ocean, and also like something died in it. He drags himself out onto the mossy bank, feeling a little like a fish drowning in air.

Sansa stands by the edge of the pool, her back to him. She’s soaking wet, her red hair hanging limply down her shoulders. She’s shaking, her head bowed and her fists clenched, and  he doesn’t know whether that’s from the cold or something else.

“Sansa,” he says. It might be the only word he knows, the only thing he can say. He reaches out and touches her elbow, a gentle brush of fingers. Sansa gasps, her body stiffening, and an apology is on Theon’s lips when she spins around and grabs him.

She kisses him, and it’s probably the best kiss he’s ever had. They’re both soaking wet and trembling, their teeth clacking against each other in their clumsy haste, and he’s not sure whether the salt on her face is from her tears or the pool.

“I love you,” she gasps against his mouth. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” It might be a prayer.

 

There’s a man standing in the pool in the godswood, the water covering his feet. It’s salt now, as salt as the sea, and the sound of it lapping against the banks sound a little like the ocean’s waves crashing against the shore.

His dark hair is pulled back in a rough braid, shot through with streaks of grey. His face is weathered and sun-browned, with deep-etched smile lines around his eyes and mouth. His grey-green eyes are smudged with dark kohl, and his bare chest is marked with ink; a kraken curling around his shoulder, birds in mid-flight, tumbling through the wind along his arm, a ship sailing across his broad back.

She thinks that Theon might look like this, someday, given time.

“You did well, little queen,” he says.

She doesn’t thank him; instead she looks at Theon, who is smiling faintly as he sleeps beneath a tree in the spring sunshine, and says, “My sister is sailing west. She’ll come back.”

“Everything does,” agrees the Drowned God. “In one form or another.”


End file.
